Project description
Tuberculosis: a persistent menace
Tuberculosis (TB), caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), is the leading single infectious cause of death worldwide, claiming more than one million lives per year. Treatment is complicated by long duration, primary treatment failure, disease recurrence, and increasingly-prevalent drug resistance. All of these complications are linked to a phenomenon known as phenotypic tolerance, by which some bacteria within a drug-susceptible population transiently survive exposure to a drug without acquiring heritable resistance mutations. Tolerant cells—called persisters—are thus prime targets for new therapeutics that could improve outcomes in TB, but the mechanisms by which they survive would-be lethal antibiotic exposure remain a mystery. To understand this phenomenon, COMBATTB is uncovering the genetic factors and metabolic pathways that lead to phenotypic tolerance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The thorough understanding of these pathways will establish an essential foundation for building better, faster TB drug regimens that could help save countless lives.
Fields of science
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiologybacteriology
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencesinfectious diseases
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicinepneumologytuberculosis
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacypharmaceutical drugsantibiotics
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacydrug resistanceantibiotic resistance
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF-EF-RI - RI – Reintegration panel
Coordinator
SW7 2AZ London
United Kingdom
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